Up Time Guarantee

[turtle]

Can someone answer two questions for me?
1. How does the up time guarantee actually work if they miss it?
2. How often do they miss it?

I'm on another shared host whose name I will not mention, but just about once a month they have a critical issue where sites are down and/or email is not functioning. The response on the user forum is mixed--some say they are moving their sites because service is so poor; others defend the host as one of the best in the business. It's hard to judge without the facts and statistics. But being down on a fairly regular basis and usually about once a month seems a bit much to me.
Feedback appreciated.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by turtle

1. How does the up time guarantee actually work if they miss it?

You have to contact HG sales and proove there was downtime and then request a refund

2. How often do they miss it?

They never missed it on the server i was on

[charlesgan]

Originally Posted by _Sam_

You have to contact HG sales and proove there was downtime and then request a refund
They never missed it on the server i was on

erm... requesting a refund.. isnt that terminating the account
... if the downtime is too much, yes you would like to doing that.

based on my review on 6 hosting currently, May 2007.
hostgator hosting is in top of my list now

[riostyles]

In one year+ on my server, HG misst once for just a few % and payd back a month without discussion.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by turtle

1. How does the up time guarantee actually work if they miss it?

Keep in mind that it isn't so much an uptime guarantee, but a refund policy if they don't make it. With shared hosting, nothing is guaranteed, just that you will not have to pay for it if it doesn't work.

Also, that is an uptime guarantee, not and SLA. Several things are not covered by the guarantee.

Originally Posted by turtle

2. How often do they miss it?

Hostgator has over 2000 server. In the last month, I think three of them didn't make the agreement. I really sucked if you were on one of those three, but the other 1997 were fine.

Originally Posted by turtle

I'm on another shared host whose name I will not mention, but just about once a month they have a critical issue where sites are down and/or email is not functioning.

That my be the server you are on, not the whole hosting company. I'd bet if you were on Hostgator's mercury server (one of the 2000), you'd think HG was the worst company in the whole world and you would be looking for a new host!

Originally Posted by turtle

The response on the user forum is mixed--some say they are moving their sites because service is so poor; others defend the host as one of the best in the business.

As you would expect, you need to average those out. Its really more about two things.

1. Did they respond to the problems quickly and fix them or did they just do nothing (reboot) and the troubles came back again.
2. Are they causing the problems by making changes or is it hardware problems, which are unavoidable. (like hard drives going bad).

Originally Posted by turtle

It's hard to judge without the facts and statistics. But being down on a fairly regular basis and usually about once a month seems a bit much to me.

Its also hard to judge because I don't know anything about YOU. About 10 or 20 people a month come to this forum and complain that hostgator sucks because their servers are down, when in reality, it is a problem on THEIR end and Hostgator's servers are fine. Without the statistics, I can't tell you if you ARE the problem or it is your hosting company. I can tell you that if your host tells you they aren't having a problem, you really need to look inward and see if it is really you.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by charlesgan

requesting a refund.. isnt that terminating the account

Ok, maybe wrong word to use

[Goddess Dix]

Originally Posted by _Sam_

Ok, maybe wrong word to use

requesting a refund of paid hosting fees isn't the same thing as terminating the account. you can ask for credit for the downtime.

however, in general, i've found that uptime guarentees are pretty much worthless to end-users. hosts offer it because people expect it. if you look at a 99% uptime guarentee, that's about 8 hours allowed down a month-still way off acceptable. because you can't use external monitoring as your proof, you have to get the host to agree.

and remember: "uptime" isn't the same thing as a server operating correctly. you could have all your databases toasted, but technically still be "up" to get those lovely error messages out to your visitors.

i wouldn't make any hosting choices based on that, myself.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by Goddess Dix

i wouldn't make any hosting choices based on that, myself.

If making hosting choices, what you are really looking for is an SLA (Service Level Agreement). That basically says, here is what we offer, here is exact what we mean. Of course, hosting with an SLA is a bit more expensive that standard shared hosting.

[gwyneth]

Once again, we encounter the mission-critical issue. Instead of relying on your hosting firm's promises or guarantees (and it's not a guarantee, really, it's just an offer to refund if they do go down), have a fail-safe.

Serra posted an inexpensive way to achieve redundancy and avoid down time a few months ago, and as soon as someone remembers the search query to find it, we can post the link.

[slapshotw]

http://gatorwiki.holmis.se/index.php?title=Proof